Direct mail campaigns can be extremely effective for disseminating information to a large audience. The originators of such campaigns commonly employ computer-based information handling systems to maintain databases containing mailing information for individuals within an audience targeted to receive information. However these systems currently have no way of determining whether the party being addressed exists at the location or address obtained for that individual. If the targeted party does not reside at the given location, information sent to that location likely will not reach the party, wasting the resources of the originator of the campaign. Consequently, with direct mail expenses constantly increasing due to increased costs for postage, labor, materials and the like, and with mail security becoming a prevalent issue, it is desirable to verify the accuracy of mailing information obtained for the audience targeted to receive the direct mail campaign.
Known to the art are software applications which compare a database containing mailing addresses with a database containing known addresses to determine if an address is contained within a set of known addresses. These applications prevent processing of records not in the known set saving the material, labor and transportation costs. However, such applications cannot determine if the party (name) targeted to receive information is at the verified address.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a method for determining whether a party (name) is contained within the subset of names associated with an address contained within the set of known addresses. In this manner, it would be possible to prevent mailing of information to locations where an targeted party does not reside, saving further material, labor and transportation costs.